North Korea’s best shot not so loud

North Korea on Tuesday criticized South Korea-U.S. military drills with milder-than-usual language that’s seen as a sign of its interest in keeping up diplomacy.

North Korea typically speaks with warlike rhetoric against any South Korea-U.S. exercises because it considers them as a rehearsal for invasion. But it has not made any such harsh statements against the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills the United States and South Korea began Monday.

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On Tuesday, Pyongyang’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea broke the country’s earlier silence and called the training “big anti-(North Korea) war drills” and warned South Korea could face unspecified “uncontrollably catastrophic consequence.”

An unidentified North Korean committee spokesman also accused South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye of making “bellicose remarks” Monday by calling for a military readiness to ensure peace. The spokesman said via state media that Park’s comments “chill the hard-won atmosphere for dialogue” between the Koreas.

Park’s office didn’t confirm the comments attributed to her, but the South’s Unification Ministry called the North’s criticism of the drills “the same old” rhetoric and urged the country to act responsibly.

North Korea has made similar threats in the past, and Tuesday’s language is not as intimidating as its previous rhetoric such as threats of nuclear wars the country made during springtime drills between the allies.

“It’s not something that overturns its current policy on South Korea,” said Chang Yong Seok, a senior researcher at Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.

After high tension earlier this year, there have recently been signs of easing tension on the divided peninsula, with Pyongyang ratcheting down its rhetoric and perusing dialogues with Seoul and Washington.

The two Koreas last week agreed to work toward reopening a shuttered jointly run factory park, and Pyongyang on Sunday accepted South Korea’s offer for talks on reuniting families separated by war. Four North Koreans were to visit South Korea this week to attend a U.N.-organized youth leadership program.

Despite the recent conciliatory gestures, some analysts in South Korea are wary of the North’s intentions, saying Pyongyang often follows provocations and threats with a charm offensive meant to win aid.

North Korea agreed to South Korea’s offer for talks on the family reunions but proposed another set of talks Thursday on resuming lucrative tours of Diamond Mountain, implying it wants the tourism restart in return for allowing the reunions.

The mountain tours had provided a legitimate source of hard currency to North Korea before they were suspended after a 2008 shooting death of a South Korean tourist in the resort.

The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills that continue until Aug. 30 are computer-simulated war games involving 30,000 American and 50,000 South Korean troops, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry and the U.S. military command in Seoul.